The present invention relates to a disk driving apparatus which employs a slot-in method and is adapted to selectively drive one of disks set in a plurality of trays.
Examples of conventional disks on which information can be recorded include a compact disk (hereinafter referred to as CD), and examples of disk driving apparatus for playing CDs include a CD changer adapted to play a CD or CDs selected from among a plurality of CDs.
An example of CD changers of this type is shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2620146, which concerns a CD changer having a main body that houses a plurality of trays arranged one above another and a driving arm adapted to rotate around a vertically extending arm shaft so as to approach or move away from the trays, said arm shaft disposed at a side of the trays. The driving arm is provided with a turn table for chucking the CD, a driving unit for rotating the turn table and a head unit for performing playback of a CD.
The CD changer described above selects a tray or a CD and performs playback by moving the trays to form a driving space under the selected tray, while raising or lowering the driving arm to such a height that the arm can enter the driving space, and then inserting the driving arm into the driving space to play the CD within the space defined by the selected tray.
As for the manner of setting or removing CDs into or from the CD drive apparatus, various methods are employed conventionally, including a method which calls for moving a tray back and forth from the front of the main body of the CD drive apparatus, and what is generally called a slot-in method, which calls for inserting or removing a CD into or from a disk insertion/removal opening formed at the front of the main body of the CD drive apparatus. Compared with the method that calls for moving the tray back and forth, the slot-in method has benefits in that it is capable of simplifying the structure of the tray itself as well as the mechanism to move the tray back and forth.
However, in cases where the slot-in method is employed for a CD changer, a plurality of disk insertion/removal openings in a number corresponding to the number of trays have to be arranged on the front side of the body of the changer. Furthermore, in case of an in-vehicle CD changer (a CD changer to be mounted in a vehicle) or the like, the entire front side has to be open instead of providing a disk insertion/removal opening for each tray, because the dimension along which the trays are stacked is limited. For this reason, a front door has to be provided to open or close the front of the body of the changer. In case of an in-vehicle CD changer, however, it is not always possible to provide a sufficient space to open the front door.